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Transparent Screens on the Horizon?
mhesseltine writes "According to United Press, researchers in Japan are developing transparent transistors. This could bring about see-through screens like those in Minority Report. Also, I imagine would be better heads-up displays (HUDs) for vehicles, layered flat panel displays, and new methods of interfacing with information screens."
I can surf pr0n while driving!
Cause just talking on my cellphone, drinking coffee and eating a donut weren't distracting enough...
Another useful application would be the cool reverse camera shot of zion bay door operators =D
You've got a lot to learn before you can beat me. Try again, kiddo! (ha ha ha!)
...on the horizon? I'll definitely need to invest in some binoculars.
I've got enough trouble seeing the opaque monitor on my desk.
Finally I will be able to get rid of that CRT taped to my windshield.
The displays in Minority Report were all projector-based. I think.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
... windows? I guess
I am the bastard of base minus 12! Turing was the ejaculate of my complete machine!
Transparent screens are nothing new. Liquid crystal displays are transparent. As for glowing transparent screens-- well that's something entirely different.
I can't wait to see who it is that I'll be killing in the near future..
But seriously.. besides the HUD mentioned in the article, I have a hard time picturing actual uses for this.. maybe a little improvement to Disneland's Star Tours ride?
Call me silly, but it's hard for me to picture using something that's transparent which I will most likely see right through in the process of falling asleep while at my desk..
---
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.
-- Robert Benchley
Yeah, wouldn't this be an awesome addition to the process... you could be there and not look as suspicious, now we just need transparent cameras.....
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I actually think it'd be hard to see a full colour image behind a HUD type display. The colours in the background would blend with the colours in the HUD display. That's why HUDs always use monocrome green.
Transparent displays would also be a significant advance for the field of Augmented Reality.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
I went to the newly renovated Ocean World exhibit at the Museum of Natural History a few nights ago. Their information kiosks feature a two-layered display. It is quite striking.
The top layer shows information about the selected creature, while the bottom layer shows the "tree of life". Elements on both layers are selectable via touchscreen. The bottom screen is visible through the top screen - both through a window and more faintly through the content of the top screen.
But I can see right through this little transparent scheme.
Vonal Declosion
I would hope the editors would try and be a little less transparent.
I swear, sometimes I feel invisible around here.
So a blue screen of death while driving would block your vision while you careen into a wall, and really die. Cool!
But how would you set the alpha channel?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You could have several behind each other - build up a 3D display ;)
I don't know how close you could get one behind another, but even if there is say 1cm gap between each layer, you could still have cool effects.
how in the hell am i supposed to pick my nose at work?
Wonder if you could layer these screens to provide depth of vision as well...
There would be some interesting applications for a screen that could allow information to be displayed in three dimensions.
By embedding reflective but transprent phosphors and other chemicals/compounds into plexiglass or glass one can project images onto that glass with a normal projector.
I did this as an experiment just after Minority Report using a tiny xb31 HP projector and plexiglass. Gives a really neat effect - just need low light / dark room (also as in Minority report)
Although the layered screens i suppose couldn't be done this way.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
is that you can see through them.
This is already possible with one-way mirrors reflecting the screen, but one-way transparent screens would make it easier.
Instead of having the camera at the top of the screen and looking back and forth, put it directly behind the middle of the screen, about 2/3 of the way up. Or have smart software that would track where the other person's eyes are and put the camera between their eyes so you could look directly at them.
I believe that this is a big factor in why videoconferencing always "feels strange" and perhaps part of why it hasn't caught on.
Just imagine, we could have some kind of LCARS from Star Trek.
and you fail chemistry
Extremely convince illusions created by layering multiple levels of transparent screens. True 3D, though only so much parallax can be created.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
When I look up at the night sky I see lots of stars... Why didn't the orbiting spacecraft? Also, how come Jupiter is almost entirely round when the Earth is less than half visible? I think it's a fake!
Just trying to use transparent windows in ... well, windows distracts me. Why would a transparent monitor be useful?
Don't we want to concentrate on what we're doing anyway? If I'm driving a car, I don't want to browse some news page at the same time and if I am coding something, I don't want to watch the wall behing the monitor.
Transparent transistors are cool and all, and I'm sure we'll see some good applications for it, but I don't think "transparent monitors" in itself will be the next Killer Application.
...I imagine that these will not be low $$$ items. Therefore, if the internals are transparent how will any repairs be made to prevent against handing out a lot of money to replace a broken/malfunctioing one.
If these can be made into a grid (for display 2d images, can they be made into a matrix to display 3d? I think that would be very cool. to have what looks like a solid glass box sitting on a table and BAM! things just start to form inside. -AntonK
Can this be ported to linux :)
Am I the only one who would put something solid behind the transparent screen so I wasn't distracted by the stuff behind it? People walking around back there, maybe the dog running through my documents...it'd tick me off pretty quick.
That may just be me though...
Now I can use my monitor for what I've always intended, to see what's behind it not on it.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
3D p0rn :)
(ducking)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Check out the sci-fi flik 'Mission To Mars'. There are at least two examples in M2M where see-through screens are in use...one is in the mars orbiter, where a screen about a meter wide extends down from the ceiling, and the other are the hand-held screens in use on the surface of Mars, where they are not only transparent, but they roll up when not in use. The actors make interesting use of the see-through screens in both cases. Shame the trailers don't show either screen.
i always wondered what was hiding behind Windows 2000...maybe now we'll know.
I actually thought of something simular in '84 when those acrylic clocks (clear except for the numbers) came out.
I thought, this would be great for tinting windows.
background=#000000
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Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
Now I don't have to waste valuable CPU cycles on creating a wallpaper.. I can just put real wall paper behind my display.
How can transparent transistors have anything to do with a transparent monitor? Perhaps if they changed color too, but I believe an LCD could be made transparent simply by pulling all the electronics of to one side, and putting a piece of glass behind it. The glare, etc is the problem, that's why it's in a box. Please correct me if i'm wrong, I'd really like to know if transparent screens and transistors are related, and how.
stuff |
When a new technology is discussed as: "we could do thus-and-such cool useless thing with it," what's really happening is that people are trying to invent a use for the invention. This is also known as "marketing."
They're closer than you think - Universal Display Corporation (http://www.universaldisplay.com) already has some prototypes and a May 20 press release says Samsung has built a transparent full color display using the technology (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030520/205446_1.html).
Most interesting is Universal Display's stacked OLED technology. It stacks the red, green and blue pixels on top of each other so one full-color pixel occupies the screen real estate of a single pixel.
I have to admit, having a heads up display in my car sounds pretty spiffy. No longer will I have to look down to see my speed, nor check my idiot lights. All I would need to do is refocus my eyes to check the speed, or perhaps I could train my self to see the blur as i'm actually looking at the road.
I also see the practical application of being able to place transparent screen tech in things like windows, eliminating the bulky television and monitors we presently use. Imagine not having to find a place for your entertainment system, it's embeded into your house / apartment already, assuming you actually have a window.
But for entertainment value, it's got to beable to go opaque. Can't be watching star trek(tm) on your window and get distracted by a bird flying by, let alone letting your neighbors watch what ever you are watching. Anyone who's played with a genlock can speak about how distracting it can be.
But for practical entertainment, transparent isn't quite so keen. Pie charts and bar graphs wouldn't be a problem. Reading loads of text on the other hand would be a pain.
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We could stack several transparent monitors and *finally* have alpha-blending in xfree86!
0 1 - just my two bits
okay... first the japanese develop the invisible coat, and now this see-through screens, is that a pattern or what?
They'll need to choose a material for the transistors that has the index of refraction as everything else in the display, otherwise it will be tough to see through (like frosted glass).
It's the whole reason the Predator (in the movie with the same name) wasn't completely invisible. Those pesky physics always spoil a good time!
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The display you're thinking of is a MultiLayerDisplay made by Deep Video Imaging.
The top layer is a mostly transparent LCD (not perfectly transparent, but close enough) and the bottom layer is a standard LCD with a powerful backlight. The effect is amazing!
I saw this display and a few others at SGI's developer conference last week -- gobs of really cool stereo 3D and psuedo-stereo 3D monitors. The coolest was one by SeeReal, a display that tracks the position of the user's eyes to provide a true stereo image without needing any special eyewear. The downside of most of the displays is that they're designed for one user only.
This would make it possible to stack the RGB pixels on top of each other making it possible to display any color with a single pixel. Would that make the resolution of my laptop three times greater?
-the Hun
I'm a Tasty-vore. If it's Tasty, I'll eat it.
I believe this has already been done at Oregon State University. OSU Engineers Create First Transparent Transistor.
I got to play with a few such monitors at the Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) developer conference last week. Deep Video Imaging has a multilayer display, exactly as you described. Also, SeeReal has a truely stereo (one image per eye) monitor that works by tracking the user's eye position. The downside of the SeeReal monitor is the lack of support for more than one user at a time.
See my other post. These already exist from at least one company (DeepVideo). SGI and a few other companies are even supporting the mutliple layers in the software development kits. MutliLayerDisplays are a neat idea for certain tasks and make for a very cool demo. But not quite as cool as the true stereo displays (again, see my previous post).
If you notice, the projector is tiny (that's why I linked it), so it takes up almost as much deskspace WITH the plexiglass (about 20" is what I used) as a normal CRT would. It isn't far enough to "walk between". You'd also be walking ON my desk. I angled the projector up just slightly and "put it" into the original space where you put a glass CRT "under cabinet". Instead of laying the glass flat that covers over the monitor area, I sat it almost straight up on it's edge. It worked quite nicely.
Look through this
There's a show going in Baltimore this week that has other vendors of this sort of technology too.
Now I'm just waiting on the infalible error correcting little wooden blue/red balls!!
...And when we want to move data from the display on one computer to another will we have to transfer it onto a little glass panel then physically carry it to the other computer?? (It's just like a floppy disk, but looks way cooler!)
This is really neat, but will only be useful to me if it has adjustable opacity. I would want to have this in a flatpanel screen sitting on my coffeetable. I could have it actually blocking my TV screen. When I'm watching TV and want to view the chat on my talker superimposed on the screen, I could adjust the transparency to do so, and when I wanted to browse the web, I could make it opaque to do that. Otherwise, this will only find decent use in such things as HUDs and the like -- some things in computing can only be done well with opaque backgrounds for clarity sake, like gfx editing.
However, I like the idea. I use transparent Konsoles a lot and would enjoy having other things with an option to be transparent, including the monitor itself.
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Seriously, polarize the glass on a pixel-per-pixel basis. Not good for a HUD on a Car, but great for a monitor.
an interesting thought:
:-)
transparent resistors in transparent aluminum
mixing Minority Report with Star Trek.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Just curious... while I can see the value of a speedomter, and maybe an odometer, do you really need to see the tac, oil pressure, etc all the time?
If you're driving an auto you don't care about the tac, and in a stick you usually shift by feel& sound, not by gauge.
Seems to me that the most useful thing would be to project maps connected to a GPS on the screen...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
To each their own, but I for one don't especially want this. I *like* my flat-panel where I can seeit (and not behind it). :-)
..The Emperors New Cloths....that is a lovely new screen you have there!!
...how hard is this going to make it to surf porn at work??
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What happened to the super-large, flexible, "I can staple it to my livingroom wall" displays that they said were "just around the corner". Organic transistors or light-emitting-polymers or whatever.
When can I expect to be able to equip my house with a display that is 120 inches without using projection?
Can't omit the bitches.
At Oregon State University transparent transistors have been developed. I think it would be very cool to see these two innovations combined to produce a completely transparent computing device.
Where the Music Matters
kinda sucks, don't it?
that's what a clear display will be like.
another problem:
people getting their finger prints all over the monitor. I don't touch my monitor, but I've had bunchies of greasy fingered bosses/supervisors/cowrkers/subordinate drones come to my desk and point at and TOUCH sometihng on my screen in a discusion over some visual elements of some work.
If the clear screen is a sheet of plastic people won't touch it, but the dog will chew it, or it'll get bent up, or folded/stapled/mutilated. If it's rigid (like plexi) then it'll attrach dust and fingerprints, and look *hideous*.
I'll prolly get modded down for this, but it's a sincere statement:
I wish people would stop living in some antiseptic hi-tek fantasy masturbation world where everything is out of some emotionally retarded second rate sci-fi novel / movie and live in the real world and make machines that solve problems for people, instead of making toys for the over paid anal retentives of the world.
Woof.
R.Ss.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
"If you will it, it is not a dream. Theodore Hertzl, Dude."
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This sounds about as fun as having a sheet of paper on your windshield while you're driving, and nearly as useful. Ever try and focus your eyes on a non-opaque object, such as a reflection on the side of a fish tank?
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We're just going to see all the dust on the back of the screen and on the desk behind the monitor. Yet more cleaning to do... :)
Now I can finally have the GTA3 hud on the windshield of my car and get points for my lack of driving skills!
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
LCD screens aren't completely transparent and they have to be extra bright to make up for it.
Here is a link to more information about lcd displays
lcd transistor
Ah, so that is why the sky is blue: they are running Windows and it just BSOD'd.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If you buy that, well I have a completely invisible screen ill sell you right now (patent pending of course ;)
..If they were, how would you see them?..
I managed to get my hands on one of these. I'll sell it to you for $10k. It'll ship in the accompanying 'invisible box'.
old monochrome plasma displays are transparent and they have been used as bank teller screens (camera was behind the screen). the electrodes were made thin enough to be transparent. so you can get a transparent screen with offboard circuitry. lcds use transparent electrodes today. the use of high speed transparent transistors appears to be the trick here, so the full video circuitry could be put on the screen.
I know generally speaking, with 3D systems, there is a method by which you use alternateing frames to display each of the 2 part signal, resulting in a half-framerate, what if, useing this tech, one could put one of the signals on one layer, and another seperate signal on a forward transparent layer, then, with the right glasses, one could beat the frame-rate problem, as well as not requireing glasses that are timed with the screen. Just a thought
Atrox
-Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
-Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
didn't Battlestar Galactica have clear displays in the 70s?
Yeah baby, THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!
Kikoman won't stop!
It's not meant to be useful. It's meant to be Cool and sell more monitors.
You can get pr0n on your cell phone now. (The Sprint Picture phone commercial comes to mind...) That is the REAL reason behind those "hands free" kits!
There is a shop at Burrard and Alberni (Vancouver) that has been using a transparent screen for advertising for about a year now... It seems to be LCD technology, but I can't be sure. It is very thin, and hangs from cables in a prominent display location.
the screens in Minority Report
Transparent LCD screens have existed for many, many years. They first appeared in the devices which were used to convert overhead projectors into a sort of ''poor man's projecter" (this was at the time when the only alternatives were 3-gun CRT projectors which were big, heavy, and expensive).
How do you think LCD projectors work? Basically, they shine a bright light through a very small, transparent LCD.
Desktop and Laptop LCDs are also transparent. Most simply have a piece of white plastic on the back of them (to reflect and evenly distribute light from the backlight. Of course, the big problem with LCDs are that they need to be backlit to increase contrast and brightness.
I believe OLEDs were intended to eliminate the need for a backlight, and I'd presume that they'd be transparent like an LCD. Whichever way you look at, we've got some amazing technology headed our way in the next few years.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
This could bring about see-through screens like those in Minority Report.
Yeah, those were alright, but the ones in the Matrix II, in the Zion Central Control shot (white room, white people, white clothes) were way better.
Can I be morpheus then?
I imagine would be better heads-up displays (HUDs) for vehicles
Normally HUDs have the requirement of 'Focus as Infinity'. This allows you to read them without refocusing your eyes. A flat LCD wouldn't achive this.
As a side effect of of the infitity focus, the size of a displayed image on a HUD doesn't descrease as you get farther away, only the viewable area gets smaller. It is pretty neat to be able to read the small letters on a HUD from across a room, even if you have to read them one at a time.
(appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
First, transparent computer cases. Now, this! Gee whiz, what'll they think of next?
OSU already developed transparent transistors.
HUD's in fighter aircraft work like old Video Arcade displays. There's a plate of glass at an angle infront of the pilot, and a display facing up at the plate of glass. The pilot looks through the glass out of the cockpit and sees the display below reflected into it.
Project a double image HUD, so that they combine with your unfocused eyes to look like one HUD.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
...windows in homes. Sometimes what is outside is nice to look at, other times, it might as well be some sort of monitor so you can watch what you want to watch. Heh, live in the frozen north, after month 5 of white stuff outside, change it to palm trees! Stuck in town, some office, you are lucky to have a window with a never changing view of the building across the street. Click! The mountains, the seashore, supermodel island! ...wait, the PHBs won't go for this stuff, only in THEIR offices.
I already have a completely transparent screen today, now if I could just remember where I put the darn thing...
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
There is already a transparent transistor invention from Oregon state university. Check out
a r0 3/transparent.htm
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2003/M
Well..how do I know? I am a student from Oregon State University
a company (I forget) makes them, they are called "Holoscreens". Our company is looking at buying some 110" screens they make.
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They may be real, but they are projected, not transparent transistor.
Years ago I heard of a laptop where the backlight could be removed from the screen, and the hinge folded flat, so the whole unit could be set on top of an overhead projector.
A little Googling turns up an educational review of projector options where it's briefly mentioned, but I was unable to find any specific reviews of the machines mentioned.
Personally I want a display like that, with an optional diffuser to slip in back so I can use ambient light instead of the backlight, to save power.
Am I right?
>Transparent Screens on the Horizon?
:)
Wouldn't they be easier to read if they were a little closer to you... like on your desktop...
The CCDs in cameras have this annoying problem of not actually covering the whole detection area due to the need for the "control" infrastructure" between the detection elements.
This produces noticeable limitations on the resolution of the cameras.
I would also wonder if this could be used to make better image sensors with respect to the colour components. That would be an interesting fork in the image sensor path...
Head up displays? I prefer to use the force...
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
I always suspected that the real world was
actually a 60km-wide disc, and that there
were transparent screens on the horizon.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
"Yes sir, I need this transparent display for our 'Whitespace' programming efforts."
I guess it will do me no good to turn my monitor around at work so they can't see me surfing slashdot.
Wake me when we have Transparent Aluminum!
...not M2M...duhfffus!
And the trailer has at least one scene (about midpoint) of the larger screen.